How To Raise Butterflies At Home

The Insect Lore Live Butterfly Garden

Hi there – I am so happy that you stopped by to learn how to raise butterflies at home! In order to grow our butterflies, we started by purchasing the Insect Lore Butterfly Garden kit. We used this set as one of our kindergarten science activities. We were so happy with it that I plan to order a cup of live caterpillar refills so that we can enjoy it again. Please note that I have not been asked to endorse this product. I purchased it with my own money and was genuinely impressed enough with our experience to share it.

How To Raise Butterflies At Home

You can choose to order this kit with a cup of live caterpillars, or you can purchase it with a voucher to use towards ordering them. We weren’t ready to use it right away, so we went with the voucher set.

The kit includes a collapsible habitat that is made from a screen so that you can observe your butterflies without having to worry about them escaping. There is a zipper on the top so that you can have access for feeding and eventually releasing your butterflies.

We were able to redeem the caterpillar voucher right on the Insect Lore Butterfly Garden website and choose when we wanted to receive our caterpillars. Soon after, a cup of live caterpillars arrived in our mail box, complete with food inside. All we had to do was ensure that they were kept at the proper temperature and wait for nature to take its course.

Several days later, all of the caterpillars climbed up and attached themselves to the top of the cup and began turning into chrysalides! The interesting thing about this phenomenon was that they all decided to climb up around the same time.

Once they completed their process, we simply removed the top of the cup, set it upright in the “chrysalis station” and placed it inside the butterfly habitat.

Eventually, one by one, the butterflies emerged! It was fascinating watch them climb out of their chrysalides and dry their wings.

In order to enhance the learning experience a bit, we viewed prepared slides of a butterfly antennae and wing under our microscope. We did not purchase the microscope or slides for this specific occasion, but we decided to take advantage of the fact that we already owned them.

We enjoyed observing the butterflies for several days, but decided to set them free before they laid eggs in the habitat and started a new life cycle. We were sad to see them go, but knew that we couldn’t keep them as pets!

I feel that this activity really highlights why I consider homeschooling to be such a gift. Not only a gift to my children, who had the privilege of discovering the wonder of the miracle of metamorphosis together, but also a gift to me, who was blessed to share the experience it right along side them.